Baker Artist Portfolios

Born in 1947 in Los Angeles. Attended Bennington College, graduating with a B.A. in 1969. Major: Sculpture. Received an MFA from UCLA in 1973 with a Fiber Structure major. Made many sculptures, performances, installations, and public works. Showed at several galleries, not-for-profit spaces, colleges, and museums. Chief among these was the 1981 show at the L.A. County Museum of Art called, "On Dangerous Ground." Moved to New York City in 1984 via an Artist-in-Residence Grant from the Studio Museum in Harlem and an Artists' Grant from the NEA. Have lived on the East Coast from 1984 to the present. After the Studio Museum I had another residency at P.S. 1. Until 1991 I lived in NYC and made several public artworks including the beginning of "Message From Malcolm" at the Seventh Avenue subway station on 110th Street and Lennox(Malcolm X Blvd.). Between 1991 and 1997 I lived in the Springs section of East Hampton, NY. I continued making public art for NYC and teaching at various local universities including SUNY, Stony Brook. There I got my first taste of teaching graduate students. After divorcing in 1997, I moved to Baltimore as a single parent to raise 2 children while directing the Graduate Sculpture Program (called Rinehart) at the Maryland Institute College of Art. I have been at MICA for 13 years. During this time I have made lots of art and received many awards including Pollock-Krasner, Gottlieb Foundation, and Anonymous Was a Woman. I have consistently maintained a studio where my work has shifted from its earliest interests in nature vs. the built environment to an interest in relationships between people. I am currently trying to find how art may be employed as a device for healing.